Books

IS THIS LIVE? INSIDE THE WILD EARLY YEARS OF MUCHMUSIC THE NATION'S MUSIC STATION

From the first Canadian VJ Christopher Ward, Is This Live? captures the pure fun and rock ’n’ roll rebellion of the early years of MuchMusic television.

With stories of the bands, the music, the videos, the specialty shows, the style and the improvisational approach to daily broadcast life at Much, Is This Live? is told by the people who were there—the colourful cast of on-air VJs, the artists who found their way into our living rooms of the nation as never before, and the people behind the cameras.

Dead Brilliant

Dying is the best way to revive your musical career … even if you’re not really dead.

It’s all slipping away from Roc Molotov – his band, his girlfriend, and worst of all, his ability to play the game demanded by the star-making machinery of the music business. When the best record he’s ever made is about to pass unnoticed, his oldest friend and manager, Uncle Strange, concocts the perfect scheme. Roc will fake his death, on MTV, in front of millions of viewers, assuring massive success on his latest project and the ability to create a body of "posthumous" songs to feed the grieving fans and satisfy his still-active artistic imagination. The plan works to perfection, but the ever-restless Roc finds that being dead has its limitations in this novel that’s sex, death, and rock n’ roll, played in a satirical key.

MAC ON THE ROAD TO MARSEILLe

Fifteen-year-old Mackenzie returns to Paris to attend the Christmas Eve wedding of her Dad's old friend, Rudee Daroo, and the love of his life, dancer Sashay D'or. Mac is told about the annual New Year's taxi road rally, this year hosted by the Marseille Marauders, the nastiest lot of drivers you've ever seen.Partnered with hulking cabbie Blag Lebouef, Mac manages to convince her parents that the road rally is more like a carefree drive in the French countryside than the death-defying cutthroat rivalry it's always been. Negotiating brutal weather, cryptic signage, outright sabotage, random flocks of sheep, and zigzagging back roads, Mac and Blag might be the perfect combination of cunning and brute strength.

On the road, she makes the startling discovery that the clues the drivers have been given during the rally could lead to the discovery of some valuable missing artwork. Is that worth losing the rally over?

MAC IN THE CITY OF LIGHT

Fourteen-year-old California girl Mackenzie, known as Mac, goes on a school trip to Paris where she meets up with an old musician friend of her dad's, Rudee Daroo, who now makes a living as a cab driver. Rudee reveals that some of the greatest monuments in Paris are being either destroyed or stolen and that the city is slowly becoming darker.

Mac finds herself in league with a crew of crazy cabbies and their friends as she tries to right these wrongs. She encounters sinister, shadowy characters who live in the Paris underground, a philosopher gendarme, a gypsy who can dance people into dream states, and gargoyles come to life. From dodging her school group to a heart-stopping encounter atop Notre Dame Cathedral, Mac needs all the resources she can muster to help Paris remain the "City of Light."